


it gets dark at night

by agetwellcard



Category: The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: M/M, Translation Available, Перевод на русский | Translation in Russian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-02
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 18:37:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5881345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agetwellcard/pseuds/agetwellcard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Las Vegas comes back in dreams, the dazzling lights of the strip I’ve seen more times on TV and in movies than in real life, or the swimming pool in the back of my house, Boris grabbing my ankle under the water.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it gets dark at night

**Author's Note:**

> There is now a Russian translation of this story [here!](https://ficbook.net/readfic/5195437)

Sometimes Las Vegas comes back in dreams, the dazzling lights of the strip I’ve seen more times on TV and in movies than in real life, or the swimming pool in the back of my house, Boris grabbing my ankle under the water. I’ll always wake up in a cold sweat even if the dreams are good-natured, or not even natured at all, just some blur of a past life that doesn’t make sense by the time I’m conscious. Still, I have to wipe my forehead with the back of my arm and swallow thickly and stare up at the ceiling until I give up with sleep for the night.

It’s Boris’s fault. I know that much. Ever since he’s reappeared, luring me into some world that maybe I was always destined for, the dreams come back with full force. Dreams about Vegas, though, are exponentially better than the one’s of blood dripping onto snow, or the stained jacket being found by some police officer in Amsterdam. The Vegas dreams are mostly just dreams. Not nightmares, not good, but just dreams that I have and wake up from with a feeling of dread in my stomach.

Boris is back in New York City. It’s a “long stay” according to him, but it’s likely he’ll be back to Antwerp or Moscow soon enough. We’ve been spending too much time together already. I’ll end up waking up in his apartment, in his shit neighborhood, and have to take a thirty-dollar cab ride back to the shop for work with a pounding hangover that is only intensified with every lurching stop in NYC traffic. We’re bad influences on each other, I can see that now, but it’s a lost cause at this point.

I sometimes have these dreams at his place, though, of us diving into the pool without clothes and I can almost feel the way the chlorine stings my eyes and how cold the water is when Boris dunks me under, making everything dark and blurry. And I’ll wake up, startled and gasping for a few seconds until I’ll realize I’m not really there, not underwater but in Boris’s dank apartment, the sheets twisted around my ankles and not Boris’s hands.

“You have nightmares still,” Boris says from beside me.

I’m startled for a second, only to look over to find him languidly smoking a cigarette and reading a torn paperback.

“They’re not nightmares,” I tell him, sitting up and reaching over Boris to grab my glasses.

Boris hums, sniffing and then offering his cigarette to me. I take it, inhale, and through the exhale ask, “What time is it?”

“Saturday,” he mutters. “No work.”

“Right.” I run a hand through my greasy hair and know I need a shower. I would take one here, but Boris’s bathroom is only stocked with hotel amenities; tiny bars of soap and petite shampoo bottles that only hold enough for two showers. Not my favorite. Good enough for Boris.

“What was it about?” Boris asks now. He closes his book and takes the cigarette back from my fingers.

“Hm?”

“The dream,” he clarifies. “If it wasn’t a nightmare, what was it about?”

“Oh.” I cough. “It was nothing.”

We don’t talk about our time in Las Vegas unless it’s about memorable movies we watched or fun times running from the police. Not about my dad, or about his dad, and definitely not about us and the small world we used to live in while we were drunk.

“Oh, come on,” he prods, flicking his cigarette onto the floor beside the bed.

I roll my shoulders. “You’re never gonna get your deposit back.”

Boris gives me a “I don’t give a fuck” look and stubs the cigarette into the bed-side table. I lazily watch as he slips into a raggedy looking sweater and a pair of slacks. “It wasn’t about, you know – “

He won’t say it, not if he doesn’t have to around me, but I instantly know he’s talking about Amsterdam. All of it, little parts of it. I shake my head, picking at the cover of the Russian book Boris was reading. I’ve probably mentioned the gory dreams to him before, most likely while high or drunk or both. It almost embarrasses me.

“S’good.” He says conversationally. “I was worried a little. Didn’t want you to jump in front of train or something.”

I squint at him as he throws on a coat and carefully does up each button. It seems a bit counterproductive to be worried about me after all that’s happened. There’s still something appreciative about the way he says it, like he’s trying to make it seem like something it’s not. That’s it just something small. I know he’s much more worried than he makes it seem. He doesn’t do it as much lately, but before, when we had just left Amsterdam, I would catch him watching me with his eyebrows stitched together in concern.

Boris throws my t-shirt at me and goes, “Get up. I’m starving.”

***

The first time it happens, we’re drunk. Sort of.

It’s like the old times, the TV playing a movie I’ve seen too many times and that Boris hasn’t ever even seen. I’m bored with it, though, turning the remote control around in my hands, mostly being kept entertained by Boris’s facial expressions as the movie progresses. At some point, my eyes get so heavy I close them, drifting in and out of sleep as the movie plays in my dreams.

It feels like hours before Boris is nudging me, going, “Potter. Wake up.”

I blink a few times, eyes adjusting to the soft glow of the TV, credits rolling by. Boris stands, leaving me to realize I must’ve fallen asleep on his shoulder. Not the first time, and not the last time surely. I huff before standing up too. “I should get home.”

“Stay. Is too late for taxi.”

Truth be told, I wasn’t really expecting to leave. While it would be smart to get home, it’s easier to follow Boris to his bedroom and slip out of my khakis and slip into the coarse blanket. The room is cold and the blanket is thin so it’s only natural for us to sleep close, faces turned towards each other after Boris has taken my glasses and put them on the bedside table.

I’m not as sleepy anymore, the light from the TV having woken me up, but it seems like Boris is already asleep. Just when I think he really is, he whispers, “Potter.”

I just barely crack my eyes open. “Hm?”

“Do you remember the last time we watched that movie?”

It had to have been some time in Las Vegas. “No.”

Boris laughs breathily. “Didn’t think you did.”

I elbow him. This only makes him laugh harder. “Fuck you.”

“Black out drunk you are.”

I’ve tried my hardest to remember moments that Boris has told me about, each one more incriminating than the rest, but no matter how much I struggle nothing comes back. I wonder how many hours of my life are gone forever, only able to be retold by other people.

“When we watched it for the first time,” he says, “you took a bunch of pills you found around the house. I thought you were going to die.”

I can just make out Boris’s face in the dark, the silhouette of his sharp nose and the way his tongue darts out to lick his lips. I don’t know what to say so I say nothing hoping maybe he’ll just think I fell asleep.

“I made you throw up,” he then says. “You know why?”

I close my eyes and go, “Why?”

“Because you are one of the best people I’ve ever met,” he says. “The _best_.”

I try my hardest to imagine Boris sticking fingers down my throat to get me to throw up, both of us huddled around the toilet and Boris cursing in Russian. It couldn’t have been that hard, truth be told, with how much I drank and all the pills I took.

For a while, I had thought that I was the one helping Boris. I let him stay at my house all the time, got him food, taught him about the American government. It was him, though, that was helping me. And I didn’t even know it was happening.

“I need water,” I tell him, throat suddenly feeling tight.

I crawl out of bed, forgetting to get my glasses and nearly running into the wall before grasping blindly in the dark for the doorknob. The TV was never turned off, so I used it’s light to navigate the kitchen. There are a few bottles of vodka on the counter so I take one of the cups by the sink and fill it up halfway with one of them.

I stand there, taking sips out of the plastic cup, the blue hue of the TV screen mesmerizing me. Boris finds me like this, smiling at me when he sees the cup. “Water?”

“Helps me sleep.”

He scoffs loudly and takes the vodka by the neck and then brings it to his lips. He nods. “You’re right.”

Placing the cup on the counter, I stare at him. Finally, I manage to get out, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“Fuck you.”

He laughs again, sharp and loud. He puts down the vodka bottle and wraps an arm around my shoulders. “Time for bed.”

I let him haul me back to the bedroom. Our legs knock together and we laugh at each other just to laugh. Boris closes the door to his bedroom and everything is enveloped in darkness but I can feel his warmth. I push him against the wall, in what I think is gentle but most likely pretty rough, and think nothing else when I kiss him.

There are a few too many beats when Boris just stands frozen, lips unmoving, but once I desperately grab his arm, he starts kissing back. And that’s that. I can’t remember any of our past kisses except for the one before I left for New York City, but that doesn’t count. Not when he was just trying to get me to stay.

I pull back and swallow loudly. I can’t see his reaction. I want to apologize again, but then Boris pats my shoulder and goes, “Sleep.”

And, yeah, sleep.

Listening to Boris breathe heavily, I think about him drunkenly singing that Polish lullaby he translated for me.

***

It’s easier to dodge the invitations from Boris for a week or so. I keep the shop open later, make dinners for Hobbie, and even take a call from Pippa that isn’t almost all filled with silences. It’s almost like I fell back into a time before Boris showed up in NYC, like maybe I still think that _The Goldfinch_ is safe in the pup tent uptown. None of that is true, though. I know Boris is still in town because one day he stops at the shop while I’m working.

There’s an actual customer looking through the jewelry, and I’m offering whatever bits of information I know about the pieces, but Boris is stalking through the store, knocking on the wood of the desks and opening up the wardrobes. The lady looking through the bracelets finally leaves, and Boris is quick to be at my side.

“Potter!” he says excitedly. “I have a great night planned for us.”

“I’m working.”

He rolls his eyes. “Look at you. Always working. I know you can close whenever you want.”

He’s not exactly wrong.

“Boris – “

“You share an intimate moment with me and then don’t even want to see me.” I’m about to say something, but Boris goes, “Some would think that’s rude.”

“ _Boris_.”

“Boris!” he says, mocking my voice in that snobbish way that makes me kind of want to punch him. “Come on. It’s almost dark. You’re not supposed to walk around New York City at night or you’ll get mugged.”

I shake my head and smile.

 


End file.
